"I think I do understand." I smiled at him. Sometimes Colin seems sweet.
Victor interrupted the conversation. "Amelia's turn next. We have to get rid of the curse Boggin put on her; otherwise, he can find her whenever he wants."
It didn't work. I could give the frozen time more free will, and Victor could make it act in a neutral fashion, but the moral component would writhe and tangle, and slowly correct the fate back to what it had been.
Quentin said, "I am sorry. If I were more skilled, studied more deeply in the One True Art, perhaps-"
I said angrily, "I thought my parents sent me into the cursed world in order to do this! To find you four, and set about freeing mankind from Lust and Death and War and all the other gods they worship! So was it all for nothing?"
Victor said in a voice as calm and gentle as ever I was to hear him use, "Reality consists of scarcity: No tool is of unlimited use, no good supercedes all other goods, no power is so powerful as to overwhelm all else; otherwise the universe would long ago have been reduced to that one power, with that one tool to that one good."
"What's that mean?" I said to him. Maybe I shouted it.
"It means nothing is perfect. Every rule has exceptions. Every atom in motion has a swerve."
I said tearfully, "It means I will never get away from Boggin?" To Quentin I said, "Why didn't it work?"
Quentin said, 'The wording of the oath. You would never do anything to make him ashamed. If you undo his spell, on which his whole reputation and honor depend-he took quite a risk in letting us at large-then he will be shamed indeed. I cannot undo the moral obligation, because the very act of unweaving the obligation is shameful. It is almost as if you took a second oath not to break the oath."
Vanity looked worried. She whispered something to Colin. Colin took me by the elbow and lowered his lips to my ear. "Amelia, don't you even think about trying to sneak away from us, to lead Boggin away. I am not going to let that happen. I want you too much."
Well, that gave me something to think about. The conclusions I came to were not so pleasant.
Why wasn't Victor here, keeping Colin away? I turned my head. Victor was standing, simply standing, in the prow of the ship, looking out into the snowy darkness, the surging waves, his face thoughtful.
As if he had already resigned himself to the idea that I would run away.
The Bubble Bath
The magnificent Hotel del Coronado looks out upon the blue Pacific across beaches as tawny-white and perfect as no beach in Europe can be. It is summer here, in Southern California, eternal summer. The sea breeze is always cool and crisp and fresh, and the palm trees are always as green, and know no wintertime.
When ancient poets dreamed of mansions on Olympos, in the aether high above the storms and snows of Earth, they sang of untroubled climes and unchanging seasons, not knowing that the paradise they feigned was here on the West Coast of the New World.
The hotel itself is roofed in sun-baked red tile, topped with cupolas and adorned with quaint architectural flourishes. A dozen white dormer windows peer out from under the frowning brow of a titanic conical dome. Inside, the furniture and decor are stately and Victorian, but here and there are traces of Spanish ornament.
The windows here are nothing like the windows I knew in Wales, broad sheets of shining glass, taller than a man and as wide as an embrace, admitting torrents of southern sun when shut, and the warmest zephyrs when opened wide. The western wall of the room here was more glass than stone, and a second sun shone in the reflections of the pale white floor.
It is worth every penny to stay in a place like this, even if you are counting near to your last penny. Warm days drift by while you walk warm sands, wearing as near to nothing as the law allows, and your limbs turn golden-brown; even being alone is not so much a hardship as it might seem, if you are paid up in your hotel suite through the end of the month, and you are young, healthy, blond, beautiful, and wearing a bikini.
One difficult side effect of being alone, healthy, blond, and young I had not entirely foreseen was the men: Men who want to buy you drinks, buy you food, take you to do their odd style of hopping rock-and-roll dances, and even ask you to shows. It is profoundly amazing how many men, of what age and range of types, will pursue you: men Who certainly have granddaughters older than you will smile avuncular smiles while their eyes devour you with un-grandfatherly hunger; boys too young to be out by themselves will strut and posture for you, saying the stupidest things imaginable; crazed men with staring eyes, quiet men with eyeglasses; cheerful or morose men; bald or vain or desperate; men you would never tell the time of day to.
It is amazing how well the worst ones think of themselves, and how little the best ones do.
Some are so bold, it defies belief. More than one man at a cafe table, during the moment when his date stepped away, would send a drink to my table, and catch my eye, and smile. The most bold was this tall and dark-haired chap with arrogant eyes, who asked me for my phone number while a pouting brunette in a tank top was clinging to his arm, listening. What do such men think I would think of them? That I am eager to be courted by cads? It was at times like these I wished that Victor were near, or even Colin.
Well, perhaps I was more carefree than a woman of proper decorum dares to be, because if the gentleman in question becomes too forward or insistent, you can reach out into the fourth dimension, find his governing monad, and jar it to bring his mind-body duality momentarily out of alignment. It might take only a moment for the human brain to recover from the dizziness, blindness, numbness, but in that moment, you can step half an inch sideways into a direction he cannot see.
You might laugh if I said I often had the sensation of being watched, since a nubile girl frolicking along the beach wearing a mere wisp or two of skintight fabric, making eyes at the passing men, must surely expect to be watched. But this was different from the innocent hungers and lusts of mortal men; I would imagine cold eyes staring at me, puzzled but patient.